


The Difference

by ClosetedFruit



Series: A Veil of Volleyball [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: And was originally supposed to be mature, Basically this started as what if Kageyama was a girl, Eventual Romance, F/M, FemKageyama, Femenism themes, Kageyama-centric, Slow Build, Swearing, T for strong language, so we'll get there but this is what sputtered out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClosetedFruit/pseuds/ClosetedFruit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not like Kageyama Tobio set out to hide the fact she was a girl, it just kind of happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

It’s not like Kageyama Tobio set out to hide the fact she was a girl, it just kind of happened.

There was a time in her life when she’d been downright girly; as an eight-year-old she might be found putting makeup on her stuffed animals or dressing her dolls in frilly gowns, pretending they were all preparing for the prince’s ball. Of course, the dolls always carried a change of volleyball clothes in their miniature purses, for the prince _always_ held a volleyball tournament to determine his bride. Sometimes the prince would even participate in the tournament, and occasionally the dolls would reject the prince on the basis of his subpar volleyball performance.

So maybe not that girly.

In elementary school, Kageyama discovered a local recreation center that held open volleyball practice. The recreation center became a second home. On weekdays after school she would wait, tossing a volleyball against the wall next to one of the courts, until an adult offered to teach her a technique or invited her to scrimmage. The adults were mostly helpful and welcoming, and within weeks, Kageyama was well known within the town’s adult volleyball community.

Weekends were different.

On the weekends, the recreation center had a schedule of time slots for different age groups. The ten to thirteen age group that Kageyama belonged to had a time slot Saturday morning. Typically, Kageyama was one of three girls who showed up. All of he boys avoided tossing them balls.

The two other girls didn’t take the games seriously, giggling when they missed a receive. They were the younger siblings of some of the other boys who came to play and didn’t seem to care when they weren’t tossed to. Kageyama cared.

Kageyama cared, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She saw that she was better than many of the boys on the court. She knew her accuracy, at least, was far superior. But they never even gave her a chance. Maybe it was because they associated her with the other girls, even though Kageyama never spoke to them. Maybe it was because Kageyema never spoke to anyone.

There was a boy who sometimes attended, a boy who played setter. Oikawa. She watched him with envy and admiration. Everyone liked him, and he always got the ball. He could be playing with someone for the first time, in seconds have them laughing at a joke, and in minutes be tossing to them in perfect sync. Kageyama was never on the same team as Oikawa; he was always surrounded with people who talked and bragged and laughed. If she couldn’t even bring herself to ask the nice adults during the week to play with her – they always approached her first – how could she possibly bring herself to speak to someone as popular as Oikawa?

But by watching Oikawa from afar, she realized that if she wanted to play on the court, to touch the volleyball, she needed to become more like him. She would have to make herself the most integral player on the court so that she – and not some stupid, unknowledgeable boy - made the decisions about who touched the volleyball. She needed to become the control – the setter. If she controlled the game flow, she could make sure that the best players – not the loudest – received the tosses. 

Kageyama would only toss to those essential to winning.

The first time Kageyama called for the ball, her teammates didn’t listen. Her face heated. A few of her teammates frowned at her, looking slightly disturbed. They probably had never heard her speak.

She didn’t have the courage to try again until their opponents had scored four more points.

“To me!” Kageyama yelled. A short boy with dusty-colored hair received the ball, his eyes glancing at her in surprise. He hit the ball to her.

She smirked and set the ball perfectly to her team’s tall, left wing spiker. 

He missed.

Her teammates and opponents snickered. 

“Don’t call for a toss if you can’t set, you prick,” the wing spiker spat. He had dyed his hair to look cool, and even though he often tried showy, stupid moves, he was one of the few players who could consistently hit the ball. His name was Shumi or Shrumi. Kageyama forgot. 

“That set was perfect,” she said coldly. And it had been; he moved too slow. “Next time try harder.”

But her team didn’t give her another chance to set that game, and the session ended.

The following week, Kageyama memorized her teammates’ names. That way she could call for the ball from specific people. One of her teammates, Tadaki, was well established as a solid setter at these weekend practices. Kageyama made sure she started two positions over from Tadaki in the rotation, hoping that her team would let her set when Tadaki was in a non-optimal court position. Kageyama waited, and when Tadaki was rotated to the middle of the back row, she called for the ball. 

A kid named Yokote received the ball. He had played against Kageyama’s team the previous week, and was a decent receiver, though tended to dive for the ball unnecessarily. He chose to send the ball to Tadaki despite Tadaki’s poor positioning, despite Kageyama calling for the ball.

Kageyama’s chest ached strangely. It somehow hurt more for a teammate to consciously pass the ball to someone else, more than when Kageyma was ignored because she was quiet. Kageyama jealously watched Tadaki set the ball. Now that she’d called for the ball a few times, she found it wasn’t so bad, speaking up. But not getting the ball… that was the worst.

Kageyma called toss after toss, to no avail. Kageyama wanted to touch the ball, feel her fingertips create just the right pressure to send the ball precisely where she imagined it. 

But… but if she was absolutely never going to be given the ball… well… maybe she could still help. Kageyama had once overheard Oikawa giving constructive criticism to his teammates. That’s what a setter did – tried to make the team better. If she did that, maybe her team would see her as a setter. Right?

“Yokote, bend your knees more when you receive,” Kageyama said. Nobody complained, or even acknowledged her. She nodded to herself, and carefully observed her teammates.

“Akiu, you’re jumping to soon on your spikes.”

“Tadaki, your sets have no spin.”

“Tadaki, stop aiming so low.”

“Tadaki, are you visualizing where you want the ball to go?”

Tadaki’s shoulders tensed and he snapped suddenly, “Let’s see you do better, bitch.”

Ice ran down Kageyama’s spine. Bitch. Nobody had ever called her bitch before. Her teammates maybe weren’t taking this the right way…

That turn, a receiver did finally hit the ball Kageyama, and this time, she made sure she created the softest, most hittable, beautiful toss any teammate could ask for.

Akiu didn’t even bother trying to spike the ball. It bounced off the gym floor in front of him with a soft thump. Anger seethed under Kageyama’s skin; Akiu could have hit it and _chose_ not to. She kept her mouth shut the rest of the session, positive she would explode if she even considered speaking.

When the session ended, she heard her teammates murmur among themselves. 

“Bossy bitch.” 

“Yeah, let’s make sure to avoid her team next time.” 

“Better when she didn’t speak.” 

“What a twat.” 

“Cunt.” 

“Bitch.” 

“Bitch.”

“Bitch.”

Kageyama refused to acknowledge the wetness pricking at her eyes. She decided that she hated the word ‘bitch.’ 

The next Saturday, Kageyama couldn’t bring herself to get up for the weekend volleyball session. Nor the Saturday after. Kageyama looked for exclusively female teams to practice with in her area. Girls would be nicer, she thought, more respectful. At least they would listen to another girl. Probably.

Teams were co-ed until high school, though. The local middle school league was co-ed. Within her forty-five minute bus ride radius, there was little interest in exclusively female volleyball because everything, it seemed, was co-ed.

It was six months before Kageyama returned to a weekend session. Spring and summer had rolled by quickly, and Kageyama would soon be attending middle school for the first time.

The day before Kageyama returned, she cut her hair. Her long, wavy tresses became short, flat strands. Her parents worried, and Kageyama heavily implied she thought she could play better without her hair getting in the way. She didn’t, however, explain how it was getting in the way, letting her parents make the assumptions any parent would make.

When Kageyama looked in the mirror, she saw a frowning, tall, boyish-looking kid. She wondered if anyone would recognize her at the volleyball session, and tilted her head so that a few strands of hair fell away from her ear. 

Still staring at the mirror, she decided they probably wouldn’t recognize her. She barely recognized herself. Along with the haircut, she’d grown four centimeters. And it wasn’t like she had been that memorable to begin with.

The next day, Kageyama stepped onto the volleyball court in the recreation center and reintroduced herself. If anybody recognized her, they didn’t say anything. Didn’t even mention that another Kageyama had participated several months ago. Maybe they never knew her name. Only Oikawa, standing two courts away, gazed at her with a curious expression. When Kageyama caught him watching, he smirked and turned away.

Kageyama again learned his teammates’ names and this time also asked them their preferred positions. In response, of course, one of her teammates asked Kageyama her position. This was a trick Kageyama had learned from the adults – asking this question usually resulted in getting to play the position she wanted.

A tall, thirteen year old named Yaku with a stubborn expression decided who was positioned where. Stating that he was training to be a libero, although he sometimes played setter, he gave Kageyama the position. “We’ve never seen Kageyama play. If he doesn’t do well, I’ll take over,” Yaku told the rest of the team. It seemed like a few of them were used to taking Yaku’s instructions. Kageyama didn’t correct Yaku’s “he.”

Glancing around the courts, Kageyama saw no other girls had attended – not even the two giggling sisters. 

On their team’s first receive, Yaku bumped the ball to Kageyama. She set it across the court and the spiker, Boru, a kid about her height with glasses, spiked. They scored a point. 

Kageyama looked at her hands and smiled. This was why she played volleyball. 

Throughout the game, Kageyama set the ball. Her teammates didn’t complain, even when Kageyama didn’t set the ball perfectly and her teammates’ spikes were blocked. In fact, a lot of the time, they shouldered the blame.

Boru, Kageyama noticed, sometimes hesitated before spiking, giving the opponent time to block his spikes. Remembering how her teammates responded to criticism last time, Kageyama chose not to say anything.

Although Kageyama only spoke a few words through the entire match and although their team lost, at the end of the match, her teammates patted her on the back, saying, “Good job.” Boru even gave her a fist bump.

While not all of the kids she was paired with were as friendly as her teammates in the first match, none snubbed her as they had half a year ago. She at one point ended up on a team with Akiu, and he had no objections to her sets. She wasn’t sure why people treated her differently. Because they didn’t know she was a girl? Because she was just a smidge taller than most kids? Because she was new? Because she had improved?

Either way, she wasn’t going to risk looking like a girl again ever.

Two weeks later, Kageyama entered middle school. She didn’t explicitly hide the fact she was a girl – she used the girls bathroom and locker room – but the general population of the school, including most teachers, assumed she was a guy. She wasn’t popular enough for rumors to spread about her gender, either way.

The volleyball team knew, of course, that she was a girl, for she didn’t change with the rest of the team. But aside from Oikawa giving her sly looks and calling her, “Tobio-chan” nobody treated her differently than any of the other first-years.

Once, her teammate Kindaichi asked if she would rather be a guy. Kageyama thought about it. She didn’t exactly like the idea of bleeding every month that she heard would happen to her eventually, and she didn’t like how the kids had treated her differently at the volleyball sessions when she looked like a girl. She did, however, like that she would never have to worry about weird hair growing on her face, and sometimes, although she would never admit it to anyone ever, she kind of liked wearing pretty dresses. 

So Kageyama answered, no, she wouldn’t rather be a guy. For the most part, she didn’t really think it made much of a difference.

No difference.


	2. The Exposition

Kageyama was nearly finished with her first year of middle school. Her volleyball had improved significantly – she had learned to jump serve and her sets were pinpoint accurate. Of course, she wasn’t as good as Oikawa at reading the strengths of her teammates, but she thought that would come with time. Or maybe it would come when her teammates were mostly younger than her, respected her, and would listen to her play calls. Eh.

In the last practice of the year, the coach held a final scrimmage – the outgoing third-years against the rest of the team. Of course, Oikawa paired with the team’s ace, Iwaizumi, had never lost to any other pair on the team, but the game was closer than expected. Close enough that Kageyama’s heart was pounding when she set the ball, her team trailing by three points and the upper classmen poised to end the game with their next score.

Kageyama watched the ball rise towards the end of the net. A little slow, she thought. Kindaichi spiked the ball—

Only to be blocked by Oikawa, who batted the ball out of Kindaichi’s hands without bothering to look at his opponent. Oikawa instead smirked at Kageyama. The ball bounced behind Kindaichi, and the game ended.

Kageyama glowered. She still had so much to learn. She’d stay after school and practice her set until it was so fast that nobody – not even the likes of Oikawa – would be able to block it.

After the coach had given his ‘inspirational’ end-of-term speech, after the gym was cleaned up, and after the rest of the team had left, Kageyama irately bounced a volleyball against the gym wall. Would she ever even get the chance to go up against Oikawa again?

It’s not like they were close or talked much outside of practice. Personality-wise, she and Oikawa couldn’t be more different. Oikawa was popular and sociable, she was quiet and snarky. Oikawa was cool and collected, she was hot-tempered. On the court he relied on a mixture of intuition and communication, while she was analytical. Yet, as different as they were, they shared an intense competitive streak and a passion for volleyball. Kageyama couldn’t have had a better teacher – she understood that if she ever wanted to get to Oikawa’s level of volleyball, she’d have to adapt some of his qualities.

The key word there being: some. She never wanted to prance around like the double-faced prat Oikawa was, acting the flirty, charming gentleman one moment and making biting, vicious comments the second his groupies were out of earshot.

But in terms of volleyball, yes, she admired many of his qualities. 

So as much as she loathed the snide remarks hidden under his pleasant façade, as much as she despised the times he’d taunt and bully her (only to be thoroughly scolded by Iwaizumi) she would kind of, most definitely, sort of miss him.

“Tobio-chan,” a voice sung out across the gym.

Think of the devil… 

Kageyama caught the volleyball, held it, and turned around. Well, apparently not _everyone_ had left. 

“What do you want?” she snapped. He’d probably just returned to gloat about his victory.

“What, don’t you want some advice from your sempai, Tobio-chan?” Oikawa casually walked across the court towards her, his hair neatly in place and not a drop of sweat in sight, as if he’d walked out of a beauty salon, not a volleyball game. “Don’t you want some advice from the talented, brilliant man who beat you?”

“Tch.” He was such a dick. Kageyama turned and threw the volleyball against the wall again.

Of course, Oikawa stuck out a hand and caught the ball before she could receive it.

“I’m trying to practice, _sempai_ ,” Kageyama said scathingly.

Oikawa grabbed Kageyama by the scruff of her jersey, and pushed her against the gym wall. Before it even dawned on her to fight back, Oikawa had her pinned to the wall, her wrists caught in his long fingers and his knee digging into her stomach. Kageyama felt like she might puke.

“I wanted to tell you, Tobio, that even with your genius, even with your talent, you can’t beat me.” Oikawa spoke softly, but his voice was laced with an unspoken threat that made Kageyama shiver. “Not until you are trampled so thoroughly that you and your uptight ass are forced to recognize that you need us more than we need you.” She had the strange feeling that Oikawa had wanted to tell her this for a long time but could not comprehend his words. Did he think she was a lazy genius or something?

Kageyama watched Oikawa’s serious brown eyes, unsure of what he wanted. She felt like maybe, just maybe she could help him for once if he would just open up about whatever it was that he was clearly angry about. “Oikawa-sempai—”

“Shut up. I’m not your sempai,” Oikawa bit out. Something in Kageyama snapped and turned ice cold. She’d looked up to Oikawa, tried to learn from him, and _this_ was how he viewed her?

“Well then why the hell are you here?”

Apparently, Oikawa had been fishing for this reaction. His eyes glinted with sudden interest. “I’m here to watch you break.”

Ok, Oikawa was officially nutso. 

Kageyama struggled against Oikawa’s grip, lashing out with her legs and digging her fingernails into his arms. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, the gym was too bright, and Oikawa’s scent—almond with a subtle hint of spice—abruptly intensified. Kageyama closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the sensory overload. 

Before Kageyama could take a deep, calming breath, she felt a soft pressure on her lips. Oikawa was kissing her.

It ended quickly, with Oikawa pulling away, his eyes heavy lidded and satisfied. Kageyama opened her eyes but couldn’t seem to make her legs move.

“I’d love to break you in _every_ way,” Oikawa whispered. “I’ll be waiting.”

“What the fuck, Oikawa?!” Iwaizumi stood in the gymnasium doorway. “Did you just _kiss_ Kageyama? She’s a fucking first year.”

“We were just resolving our differences,” Oikawa said off-handedly. He released Kageyama and quickly stepped away, as if whatever happened between them was a wisp of a memory. “See ya, Tobio-chan.”

“You’re an idiot, Shitty-kawa,” Iwaizumi said as they left. “You’ve seriously got to stop obsessing…” His voice faded into the wind.

Kageyama stood in the gym, feeling strangely empty. The gym was completely silent. Kageyama tried to tell herself there was no difference – girl playing volleyball, guy playing volleyball; girl setting, guy setting; girl on a guy’s team, guy on a guy’s team. There wasn’t a difference. It didn’t matter.

But deep down, she now knew it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this story just keeps getting longer. This chapter was short. The next chapter is uber short so I'll probably post it in a few days. Usually I aim for a set length when it comes to chapters, but whatever, rules (even my own made-up, ridiculous rules) be darned.
> 
> Also, I don't really have a beta/proof-reader person for stuff I'm posting at the moment. So if you'd be interested, PM me, maybe with a sample of writing or something.

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things:
> 
> 1) I literally set out to write a PWP and this came out. Note that while this is rated T, it will have a sequel rated E - apologies to the young people reading this.
> 
> 2) A lot of my stories - and all so far on this website - are about a character who in canon is male, but I write as a female. Just to be clear, I have nothing against homosexuality. It is just that I am female and personally would find it difficult to write the physical side of a M/M relationship. I also find it interesting to change a character's gender and see what happens/how relationships and feelings change, or don't.
> 
> 3) I can honestly say that this chapter in particular, portrays what unfortunately happens to many women entering fields mostly dominated by men. Stand up for your female friends.


End file.
